


thy pride of wisdom

by FreshBrains



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Gen, Halloween, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time Cosima dreams, she’s some kind of lab toy, a grotesquerie of the human image—a stitched-together ragdoll monster, a limbless tube who can’t hear or see or speak; sometimes she’s covered in scales or fur or spikes.</p>
<p>She is never quite herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thy pride of wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> _"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!"--Mary Shelley_ , Frankenstein
> 
> This fic was written for the [Orphan Black Fright Night Fan Fic Challenge](http://orphanblack.tumblr.com/post/64828915366/orphan-black-fright-night-fanfic-challenge-your) on Tumblr. I chose a quote from one of my all-time favorite horror movies, [The Fly](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091064/combined), directed by the king of body horror, David Cronenberg.

Cosima is losing herself.

Bits and pieces, here and there. She knows it’s all mental, the way she forgets things and drops things and loses things. It’s the product of too much research, too little sleep, and ever-deepening depression. But there’s a tiny part of her—a part that she’ll _never_ lose—that’s telling her it isn't the stress.

It’s in the blood. 

She starts to wonder if what she does is even _her_ at all. She envisions her favorite science fiction movies, the ones that got her into science when she was a kid—a chip implanted in her thigh, a barcode hidden on her neck. An invisible puppet pulling the strings on her arms. She figured out she’s property a long time ago. She knows she’s manufactured.

But she doesn’t know _how much_ she knows, and that scares the shit out of her.

“You are Cosima,” Delphine tells her after she breaks a beaker in lab, forgets her glasses on the night table, or wonders if their favorite Thai restaurant is on 4th or 5th Street. “You’re Cosima, not a puppet, or a thing. Nobody can take you away from you.”

Cosima gives her a smile and a kiss and a nod, but her stomach is dropping, her heart is racing. 

*

Cosima doesn't like talk about coughing up blood, and Sarah doesn't like to talk about Helena. 

After the first few brusque brush-offs, Cosima realizes that it isn't sadness keeping Sarah from bringing up those few interactions with her birth sister—it’s fear. Sarah is afraid of Helena, even after she put a bullet in her chest.

“She’s always there in my dreams. Every night, she’s right there, and she’s got these—these wings, huge and black…”Sarah shudders and holds Kira tighter, exhaling as the little girl sighs in her sleep. “She leaves a trail of black feathers. I can feel them against my skin when I wake up.”

Cosima folds her legs beneath her on the couch and glances down the hallway. Delphine is asleep in the guest room.

“She says the same thing every time before the pulls the knife.” Sarah is practically whispering. She turns slightly and looks Cosima dead in the eye, a mirror image. “ _Moya krasunya sestra. Trup._ ”

“What does it mean?”

“My beautiful, dead sister.” 

A cold wave runs down Cosima’s spine. 

*

When Cosima returns to Minneapolis, the nightmares start.

The first one has her horizontal in a tank of water. Delphine is pounding on the glass, face twisted in grief, and Cosima reaches out to her. But her arm, her hand, her fingers are gone, replaced by a green tentacle, rough in the murky water.

She hears the din of voices. Someone declares loud and proud, “This is one of our new experiments—we call her Cosima.” There’s a laugh, a chorus of _ooh_ ’s and _aah_ ’s. “She’s our mermaid.”

Delphine sobs. 

When Cosima wakes up with a gasp, leans over, and vomits onto the carpet. 

“Oh, _ma cherie_ , you’re sick. Don’t move, let me get a towel.” Delphine’s voice is sleepy as she turns on the bedside lamp.

Cosima presses a hand to her hot forehead and tries to breathe.

*

Every time she dreams, she’s some kind of lab toy, a grotesquerie of the human image—a stitched-together ragdoll monster, a limbless tube who can’t hear or see or speak; sometimes she’s covered in scales or fur or spikes.

Halloween night is the worst. She almost forgot it was the children’s holiday until she saw a smashed jack-o’-lantern on the sidewalk on her way home, its toothy grin smeared to a pulp. She settles into bed that night, arms around Delphine, and waits for the nightmare.

This time she’s naked and freezing cold in an all-white room, four walls and nothing else. Her hair is long and coarse, no trace of dreadlocks, and she squints without her glasses.

“Hello. I’m here for you now. You are not my Sarah, but you are like her. Help me.”

Cosima squeezes her eyes shut. “No, I can’t. You’re dead. Leave me alone, leave _us_ alone.” She opens her eyes and screams.

Helena is above her, black wings outstretched, face serene and eyes wild. “But I _am_ us, _sestra_. Don’t be afraid.”

Helena’s mouth opens and a hush of hot, silky-red blood pours out from behind her crooked teeth and splatters onto Cosima. Cosima turns away, struggles for air, but there’s so much blood, and the room glows red.

“Help me,” Helena gargles, blood shooting out between words. “Don’t be afraid.”

Helena's wings snap, the bones and feathers crunched by two fists, and a deep, even voice soothes out from behind Helena’s bleeding body. 

“No. Be afraid. Be very afraid, Cosima.”

Dr. Leekie tosses Helena aside, and Cosima screams once more.


End file.
